Magistrates to Result Single Justice Procedure Cases

Changes are afoot in the Single Justice Procedure court, with news that Magistrates are soon to result their own cases on Common Platform.

I have previously written an article all about the Single Justice Procedure (SJP). Briefly, for the benefit of anyone who is unfamiliar, the SJP is a no frills, cheap and speedy way of the court dealing with certain non-contested (e.g. where a guilty plea or no response is submitted in relation to the charge), non-imprisonable summary offences. It would appear that these changes are designed to make the SJP experience even cheaper and less frilly.

The SJP is generally used for offences like speeding, TV licence evasion, rail fare evasion, vehicle excise duty evasion and, more recently, breaches of coronavirus legislation.

Just as the name suggests, these cases are dealt with by a single Magistrate who imposes a sentence based on the documentary evidence before them. A Legal Advisor sits alongside the Magistrate to clarify any points of law and result the cases on Common Platform.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic a lot of this work has been done remotely via MS Teams, with Magistrates and Legal Advisors able to work either from home or a court building depending on the circumstances.

Over the next few months a new 3:1 model will be introduced, whereby 3 Magistrates will work on SJP cases under the watchful eye of a single Legal Advisor. The idea appears to be that the Legal Advisor will be available to assist, should the need arise, via the telephone or MS Teams. They would otherwise be free to get on with additional duties within the court building.

I have limited experience of SJP work. It is not something I volunteer to do. Occasionally, if it is a quiet day in court, I will ask the Legal Advisor to fire up the system and spend an hour working through SJP cases.

In my experience, SJP cases come in batches - you might spend an entire session dealing with only TV licence and speeding cases, most of which have pretty similar circumstances, so you become well practiced in the sentencing of those cases.

Even so, under the current 1:1 model you have to relay sentencing decisions to the Legal Advisor for them to input into Common Platform. By doing that, they are an extra pair of ears acting as a safeguard against mistakes being made.

When the 3:1 model is introduced, there might be some colleagues who sentence and result cases without any oversight by the Legal Advisor. Competent and experienced as they might be, mistakes might happen and go unchecked.

I am not entirely comfortable with that situation.

A series of training sessions are being held, so hopefully these concerns will be addressed.